498 LARID.E. 



of the lower mandible shutting just within those above. Nostrils prominent 

 along the upper ridge of the upper mandible, but united, enclosed, and some- 

 what hidden within a tube with a single external orifice, within which the 

 division between the two nasal openings is visible. Feet moderate, tarsi 

 compressed ; three toes in front united by membranes, hind toe very small, 

 rudimentary. Wings rather long, the first and second quill-feathers nearly 

 equal in length, and the longest in the wing. 



The Fulmar Petrel is only a winter- visiter to tlie 

 more southern parts of England, and the specimens obtained, 

 even at that season of the year, are but few in number ; some 

 of these, and the localities in which they were obtained, will 

 be referred to hereafter. G. C. Atkinson, Esq., of New- 

 castle-upon-Tyne, as described by Mr. Hewitson, met with 

 these birds in great numbers on the islands of St. Kilda, 

 Borrera, and Soa, and was informed that they also breed in 

 the south isles of Barra, in the outer Hebrides. St. Kilda 

 has been long noted as the principal breeding- place, and the 

 following account was given in a recent number of the Edin- 

 burgh New Philosophical Journal, by Mr. John Macgillivray, 

 who visited St. Kilda in June, 1840 : — "This bird exists 

 here in almost incredible numbers, and to the natives is by 

 far the most important of the productions of the island. It 

 forms one of the principal means of support to the inhabitants, 

 who daily risk their lives in its pursuit. The Fulmar breeds 

 on the face of the highest precipices, and only on such as 

 are furnished with small grassy shelves, every spot on which, 

 above a few inches in extent, is occupied with one or more of 

 its nests. The nest is formed of herbage, seldom bulky, 

 generally a mere shallow excavation in the turf, lined with 

 dried grass, and the withered tufts of the sea-pink, in which 

 the bird deposits a single egg, of a pure white colour when 

 clean, which is seldom the case, and varying in size from two 

 inches seven lines, to three inches one line in length, by two 

 inches in breadth. On the 80th of June, having partially 

 descended a nearly perpendicular precipice six hundred feet 



